


Stakeout

by wordninja



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Camping, Fluff, M/M, Multi, completely unrealistic stakeouts, entirely improper handling of a weapon by an officer of the law
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-16 17:45:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16499885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordninja/pseuds/wordninja
Summary: Audrey hates stakeouts, until she doesn't.





	Stakeout

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in some nebulous time where I took all my favorites (Duke's long hair, Nate's ability to smile, Audrey having non-life threatening time with her friends) and smooshed them together. It's before anything terribly seriously sad happens in the show, I suppose, because this is fluffy fluff of the fluffiest order.
> 
> Thanks as always to bookjunkie1975 for kindly continuing to read the things I send her, even when they're four years apart and 90% remain unfinished. She leaves everything better than she found it, me included.

**stake out** \--verb

  1. : to assign someone such as a police officer to an are usually to conduct surveillance
  2. : to maintain a stakeout of
  3. : to claim as one’s own



  
  
  


Stakeouts sucked. Audrey knew that. Nathan knew that. Duke probably didn’t, but then again, he maybe did.   
  
Audrey slapped her leg as quietly as possible, though the possibility of anyone hearing her from this distance was pretty slim.   
  
Stakeouts outside sucked even more. The three of of them had been crouching behind a landscaped hedge that was barely wide enough for all of them to sit side by side, touching from shoulder to elbow to hip to thigh to knee to ankle to feet.   
  
Audrey was in the middle. It was... a lot.   
  
Next to her right side she felt Duke scratching at his jeans, just as Nathan slapped a hand quietly against his own leg on her left.   
  
“Mosquitoes are so unnecessary.” Duke spoke lowly and quiet, but not whispering, and going very gently over the s’s. _Definitely been on a stakeout,_ Audrey filed away for later. “They serve zero purpose in the grand scheme of things, beyond being even more annoying than Nathan.” He smirked just a little, and slid his eyes past Audrey to Nathan. “No offense, buddy.”   
  
Nathan rolled his eyes (Audrey couldn’t see it but she could feel it in her mind because she new Nathan) and said, “Sure.” in a flat drawl that sounded like he was both agreeing and saying that Duke was not even worth more than that one word.   
  
Stakeouts were maybe a little fun.   
  
After a few moments of silence and zero movement from their target, Audrey said, “Isn’t there, like, some way to make them stop itching so bad or something?” She was going crazy.   
  
Maybe literally, she thought, as Nathan and Duke each picked up the arm closest to them and pressed their thumbnails into her skin in and “x” shape.   
  
Their eyes met across Audrey and both of them started grinning and seriously what the hell was happening here?  
  
“What the hell is happening here?” Audrey said as vehemently as possible under the situation.   
  
Still grinning, they both sat back, settling Audrey even tighter between them. Nathan quietly said “Camp Wilderness” in the sort of wistful voice happy nostalgia brings.  Audrey didn’t want to look away from that face.   
  
Before she ask any of the questions she was thinking, Duke and Nathan both said, “Magic Molly” and there was no mistaking the reverence in either of their voices. Audrey glanced at Duke this time, ready to demand answers, but Duke looked past her to Nathan, and a quick glance between them showed matching expressions.   
  
It was the first time Audrey could remember Nathan and Duke sharing a look over some mutual past event and smiling at each other. Usually it was pain, guilt, anger and a whole knot of other things too tangled up for Audrey to pick apart.   
  
“Seriously, what the hell is going on?” That was a little too loud, Audrey knew, but still within a probably-safe range.   
  
Still smiling a little, Nathan said, “Back when we were kids, maybe 8 or so, me and Duke, we were a package deal. My dad would say, “Never seen a boy with two shadows before,” and on her other side she could just hear Duke murmuring them along with Nathan.   
  
“That summer I’d gotten it in my head that I wanted to go to camp, and I guess my dad agreed because he was driving me fifteen miles away to to Camp Wilderness.”  
  
“Which was a terrible name,” Duke interjected quietly, “because it was nowhere close to wilderness. You could throw a stone and hit an apartment complex.”  
  
Nathan nodded and continued, “I’d begged my Dad to sign Duke up too, but... he couldn’t.” Audrey held her breath, hoping the heaviness in Nathan’s voice didn’t signify the end of his unexpected sharing. Had she ever heard him talk this much? About something so personal? And with Duke involved?  
  
“But you know me, “ Duke’s voice bridged the silence, and she saw the brief flash of gratification on Nathan’s face before she turned to look at Duke, “I’ve never been one to let a few closed doors keep me from what I want,” and Audrey was not imagining Nathan tensing next to her. Was Duke just poking Nathan, as he always did, or was he just having a rare moment of honesty without all his shades of ambiguity?  
  
Stakeouts were great. She wished she’d brought popcorn, and cursed her lack of forethought.   
  
Duke didn’t seem in a rush to pick up the thread of conversation, staring out into the dark at the fog rolling in. His face looked intense, and Audrey wondered if he was reliving past hurts. She wished there was a way to hug him without exposing their cover.   
  
She was surprised when Nathan continued.  
  
“That first day was hell. I was small for my age and, well, kids are kids. I was used to having Duke—“ his voice broke off abruptly, but Audrey heard what he didn’t say. “I was used to having Duke protect me,” and Christ she could just see the two of them, Nathan small and solemn, Duke already taller and a little wild, keeping anyone from picking on his best friend. Her heart ached for the boys they’d been, all the wrongs done to them in their short lives, and she resolutely looked up until her eyes cleared. She didn’t dare look at Duke. That might break her.   
  
“Anyways,” Nathan continued, softer than before, “That night I heard something scratching at the door of the cabin, and I thought it was a bear. When I got up and looked out the window, there was Duke.”  
  
“What?” Audrey gasped. “How did you... that was too far to... and so dangerous! You were just a kid, what were you thinking?”   
  
Duke rolled his eyes at her and said,”While your concern is touching, everything clearly turned out just fine,” and gestured at himself as proof.   
  
_Not everything_ , Audrey thought, wondering how long after that summer they became irreparably broken.   
  
“He walked all night, and once I let him in he pretty much crashed in one of the extra beds in my cabin. The next day, none of the other boys really noticed another kid sleeping in a room of 7 or 8. We figured we could get away with it after that.”  
  
“And for three days, we did,” Duke said with the same satisfaction as when anything went his way. “We were careful about not standing out, not being noticed, but on the fourth morning...” he trails off and tucks his chin down a little, hair falling formed and hiding his face. When he tips his head back again he’s grinning.   
  
“On the fourth morning, the door to the cabin slammed open and the most beautiful and terrifying woman I’ve ever seen was standing there like, like, an avenging angel or something.”   
  
Audrey checked the truth of that on Nathan’s face, always a useful barometer of Duke’s exaggerating or outright lying, but Nathan was grinning too, and nodding his head a little as Duke continued.   
  
_Beautiful and terrifying_ , and Audrey didn’t want to toot her own horn here, but her boys definitely have a type.   
  
“So everyone jumps out of bed, and we have no idea what’s about to happen. She comes in and walks straight to me and Nathan,” and here Duke flexed his hand a few times and took a deep breath, and Audrey followed the image in her mind and decided it was because they’d held hands in their fear and solidarity, because it just felt right, “we were shaking like leaves in a nor’easter, and she crouched down in front of us, god she had the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, and she said ‘I know one of you isn’t supposed to be here,  so come with me or I’ll throw you to the gator in the lake.”  
  
Nathan chimed in with, “And that was all it took for Duke to immediately fall in love with her. Beautiful face and the threat of violence.”  
  
Audrey thought she could sit here all night, sandwiched between them as they smiled at each other and shared secrets of their past. It was like the late hour and the darkness around them had made it easier for them, maybe her as the buffer literally between them, had softened all the edges into something smooth. For now, at least.   
  
“She dragged me and Duke down to her office and sat us both in these old plastic chairs, and it was like waiting outside the principal’s office all over again. When she told him to stay there and took me in the office and closed the door, I thought for sure I was a goner. But she gave me a cookie and asked if my parents knew I was here and my name so she could check the records. When I was finished eating my cookie, she sent me out and called Duke in.”  
  
“She gave me two cookies,” Duke whispered conspiratorially in her ear.  
  
“When they came out she said Duke could stay, she’d made the arrangements, and that was that.” Nathan looked over at Duke, then away. “Duke never would tell me what he said to get her to let him stay. He’s always been good with a story on the fly though.”  
  
Audrey felt more than heard Duke’s deep inhale, the heavy exhale and wondered if it was because Nathan had just given him an honest to god compliment, until Duke spoke.   
  
“The truth,” he said even more quietly than they’d been speaking before. “I only told her the truth.”  
  
For a few moments they all sat in silence, and Audrey assumed it was because they were remembering an unhappy childhood that Audrey could only imagine. She briefly, fiercely wished Duke’s father was still alive so she could kill him herself.   
  
Nathan, surprising her again, said, “After that, it was like she made it her mission to give us the best possible camp experience. We went hiking and kayaking, she made us a scavenger hunt that took three days, and she always had cookies for us.”  
  
Duke chimed in with, “When Nathan said he didn’t want to watch An American Tail on movie night because it was too sad, she told him to pick whatever he wanted and we’d watch that instead. So we watched Star Wars.”  
  
“On the second to last day, Duke fell out of a tree and broke his arm—“  
  
“God that hurt.”  
  
“—and Molly had him drugged up on pain meds and in a cast before he knew what hit him. Although at the time, we didn’t realize that she had slipped something into the hot chocolate she made him, so we completely believed her when she said—“  
  
Both of them spoke with the same kind of solemness, “I’m Magic Molly, boys, don’t you ever forget it.”  
  
“And you clearly never did,” Audrey said as casually as she possibly could considering everything in her was screaming for this strange, perfect moment to never end. She wanted to beg for every detail of every moment they shared as kids.   
  
She looked at Duke and he frowned at her for a moment before tilting his head and narrowing his eyes in that way he had that so clearly meant he was thinking, putting things together in his mind, getting ideas... and when he looked at Nathan she did, too. And holy mother of... was Nathan blushing? Nathan Stoicism Wuornos? She had to get out of this middle of this before her own brain made her spontaneously combust.   
  
“Hmm. Well, I’m taking a break for ten, do either of need anything from the car?” She slipped her gun into Duke’s hand while she spoke in case of emergency, and barely waited for a response before she was skulking back to the car as stealthily as possible. She couldn’t really tell how much noise she was making when her heart was pounding so loud.   
  
Once she made it to the car, she closed the door, waited for the interior light to turn off, and then took a deep breath. Then another one. And then she was laughing, laughing so hard she was crying, because good grief those boys were so dense and blind and still entirely wrapped up in one another. They might use different excuses, like Nathan doing “random checks” of Duke’s boat, or Duke stopping by the station seemingly just to antagonize Nathan, but they were just excuses. They were keeping each other within reach, just like they had when they were kids.   
  
Now that she was thinking about it, she had attributed Duke’s recent assistance as favors to her, or because of their friendship, or even to protect her, but what if it wasn’t? What if he was using it as an excuse to make sure Nathan was safe?  
  
It seemed like a bit of a stretch considering how awful they could occasionally be to each other, but it was a thin line between—  
  
Two gunshots, fired in quick succession interrupted her thoughts. She flew out of the car and ran as hard as she could to where she’d left Nathan and Duke.   
  
_No no no no no no!_  
  
She stopped abruptly as she saw them, Nathan with his knee on their suspects back, handcuffing him none too gently, Duke standing next to them, holding Audrey’s gun.   
  
“Sorry, Audrey, had to get the guy’s attention real quick before he...” She followed his gaze to Nathan, noticed the slightest tremor in his still extended hand, and carefully eased the gun away from him.   
  
“It’s okay, Duke. Thanks.” She put one hand on his shoulder and squeezed tightly while she holstered the gun with her other. “Thanks for keeping him safe.” She turned and helped Nathan herd their suspect into the back of the cruiser. Nathan looked back at Duke once before staring resolutely forward.   
  
Hours later, after booking and paperwork and winding down adrenaline, Audrey looked across her desk at Nathan. He met her eyes almost immediately, like he could feel her intention already.   
  
“Nathan?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“You and Duke. What happened there?”  
  
Nathan looked away and for a long few minutes, Audrey thought he was just going to ignore her and pretend he hadn’t heard. But finally, he heaved out a long sigh and turned back to face her.    
  
Meaning he couldn’t see Duke walk into the station, but Audrey could. She kept it to herself for the moment.   
  
“Duke was... Duke was always going to be a good person. No matter what kind of shit his dad, or the rest of the world, or me put him through, he was always going to turn out okay. I’ve known that for as long as I can remember.” He took another deep breath and blew it out. Behind him Duke looked stunned. Nathan continued, “But before he got to where he is now, between us being kids and him coming back to Haven, he had to burn through all the poison that had been put in him by his father, his teachers, people around town who thought it was any of their business.   And while he was doing that, I couldn’t—“ He took another breath and started again. “I couldn’t be around that. Not when I was already half in love and getting deeper every day. I knew he’d stop eventually, but...”  
  
Now he looked frustrated, and his eyes were full of something hot and painful. “You want to know what happened? He broke my heart, fifty times, and then saved me fifty more. And I don’t know how to forgive him for either.”  
  
He turned his chair around to watch Duke slip back out of the station’s front doors (and of course he knew, _of course_! His senses were all heightened without the ability to feel things, physically at least, she should have remembered that) and then turned back to his work like nothing had happened.   
  
When Nathan drove Audrey home that night, she hugged him tightly, for long enough that he finally relaxed against her, and didn’t say anything. She climbed the stairs of the Gull to her apartment and felt the sort of lassitude come over her that only followed a huge burst of adrenaline. Nathan’s truck continued grumbling in the parking lot, because he was a good boy who watched his dates get in their doors before he drove off, her brain supplied a little hysterically, and she recognized the grief underneath. She was sad for herself, for what she thought she and Nathan might, maybe, one day have started. But she put that away by the time she fell face first on her bed, fully dressed still. She’d rather her two friends be happy and if that meant with each other, so be it. There was clearly a lifetime of history there.   
  
She kicked her boots off as she drifted further towards sleep, and her last complete thought was to wonder why Nathan’s truck was still rumbling outside.   
  
The next morning, which was really only a few hours after she fell asleep (but she refused to think of it that way) Audrey changed out of her clothes (gross, so gross) and pulled on her oldest jeans and a giant, well-worn sweater she’d found in the closet that she would bet money had belonged to Duke at some point. Yawning hugely, she stumbled down the stairs to beg coffee off of Duke. She stopped abruptly at the bottom of the stairs because Nathan’s truck was still sitting in the same spot, engine silent in the early morning air.   
  
Audrey didn’t let herself think about why she was suddenly tiptoeing down the last few stairs and peeking around the corner before sliding over to the nearest window and peering inside.   
What she saw was a bar lined precisely with nearly two dozen empty beer glasses, and on either end of that line were Nathan and Duke. It looked like they were talking? Maybe? Audrey was way too under-caffeinated for any spycraft more serious than that. She mentally crossed her fingers and pushed the side door of the Gull open. It was squeaky and always slammed a little no matter how gentle you were, and Audrey figured that was all the warning they were going to get. She needed coffee.   
  
“Morning. Don’t talk to me unless you have coffee.” Audrey sat on the stool next to Nathan and now that she was this close she saw the steaming mugs in front of both of them.   
  
Nathan slid his over with a small smile and Duke got up and rounded the bar to where the coffee maker was.   
  
As Audrey sipped Nathan’s too-sweet coffee she began putting more than one thought together at a time.   
  
“You guys were up all night?” She tried to put as little emotion into the sentence as possible but it still sounded... suggestive.   
  
Duke returned with a mug for Audrey, and topped Nathan’s and his own mug off. Nathan said, “Yep. Drank ourselves sober.” Audrey was going to strangle that droll, give-nothing-away voice that left half the words out of every sentence. She needed more, damn it. She drank more coffee instead.   
  
Duke, bless his everything, settled back into his chair and said, “We had a lot to discuss. Everyone knows that makes you thirsty,” and he gestured at the absurd amount of glasses in front of them, “so we had some drinks. Then Nathan said he could beat me in chess so we played, ehhh, a few games.”  
  
Nathan, suddenly right behind her, that silent bastard, whispered in her ear, “I beat him 3 times,” and despite what they may think, Audrey could tell there was still enough alcohol in Nathan to make him loose and happy.    
  
“So you two drank half the bar and then played six games of chess? Really?” Audrey kind of wanted to pout, just a little.  
  
“Aw, don’t pout, Audrey, you look all sad and pathetic,” Duke said, and okay. Maybe she was pouting. A little.   
  
“I’m not. I guess I’d just hoped that you two had talked.”  
  
“Played 6 games, let him win 3.” Nathan’s ability to pare a statement down to bare essentials was going to drive her crazy one day. That she could feel his breath against her ear and neck every time he mangled a sentence wasn’t helping either.   
  
Duke rolled his eyes and walked to stand next to Nathan. “She wants to know if we played any,” he dropped his voice lower and almost purred, “other games.”  
  
Audrey sat up a little straighter as she swivelled her barstool around to face them both.

  


“No,” Nathan succinctly destroyed her burgeoning vision with that single word.

  


“We decided to to wait for you.” Duke’s simple statement brought it roaring back.

  


Standing up from her chair, Audrey tried really hard to sound calm and unflustered. She wasn’t sure she’d succeed, because she was  _ extremely _ flustered.

  


“That sounds--” she took the slowest, deepest breath she could manage before finishing, “great. Really great. Fantastic even.”  _ Reel it in, Audrey _ . She didn’t really want to, but she had to be sure before she risked... whatever this was with her two best friends. She couldn’t lose them. Not either of them, not ever.

  


“But I need to... make sure. That we’re all on the same page. So is this...?” She trailed off as Nathan smiled at her, the same small smile on Duke’s face, too. 

  


“Do you really think that either one of us, stupid as we may be from time to time, would ever do this for anything less than everything? We want  _ everything _ , Audrey. All of it. With you. With us.” Nathan’s smile had grown as he spoke, and she didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so relaxed. Or string so many words together at once.

  


_ Happy _ , she thought.  _ He’s happy _ .

  


Closing the distance between them, she kissed Nathan while he was still smiling gently at her, a brief, sweet kiss that she then shared with Duke, feeling that same pull of a smile against her mouth. 

  


“Yes. Of course yes. Everything, for as long as Haven lets us.”

  


In the pale morning light, she led them both back up the stairs, where Duke kicked the door shut behind them. None of them came out for the next two days, other than Duke running downstairs for food occasionally.

  


Audrey really loved stakeouts.

  


  


**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know about the weird spacing at the end. No matter what I do, it remains. Sorry!


End file.
